Family Fun: December 2017

December was SO FULL (clearly since it’s taken me this long to blog about it ha!) and I decided to do a combo post rather than having a summary post for each kid I’m just doing a big family post to cover it all. Including what our Elf on the Shelf was up to this year! I usually do a solo post of our Elf fun but, again, just tossing it all together this year. So here it goes!

Our Elf is Hermey and he brought his sister, Snowflake, a couple years ago so now we have two elves. Here is what they were up to this year in our home:

Every year they arrive on Thanksgiving morning with yummy muffins!

He’s back!

I love Kye writing notes to Hermey 😉

Britt lost her first tooth on Thanksgiving day and left the Tooth Fairy a note!

Hermey and Snowflake turned the Tooth Fairy fun into their own game for Britt and the other kids. They made a scavenger hunt to find her money!

I love the last clue 😉

Found it!!!

Britt sharing about her tooth!

 Making their “to do” lists like Mommy and Daddy were as we waited for baby!

The kids really wanted a “Elf Pet” and Santa delivered!

I LOVE Kye’s excitement over it!

Santa sent us the Reindeer Elf Pet! 

The kids were kinda disappointed with it because it turns out this one you can touch and play with so it’s not really part of the whole Elf magic thing with doing fun things while they sleep. 

I know, super original name 😉

More Elf Fun!

The elves brought us Trolls Holiday which was pretty cute but def not as cute as the original movie in my opinion! 

The Christmas Lego kits are super cute and fun!

Always such a fun Elf Game!

I love when the Elves bring new Christmas stories for our family to enjoy!

Santa’s Underwear (so appropriate for Kye who LIVES in his underwear), The Little Reindeer, A Christmas for Bear, and Disney Baby My First Christmas 

On Dec 24th our Elves always leave something extra special as they head home to the North Pole that night! They wrote a sweet note to the kids and left a fun school set as the older three all love to play school!

Of course the BIG EVENT of this month was adding sweet Spear to our family! Most of our month was spent just soaking up those sweet snuggles and being so thankful to have him in our arms forever 🙂 

While I was away for half the month with Spear in Florida life continued on without me. I totally missed book club! I didn’t finish our book for the month (Before We Were Yours) but was sad I couldn’t be with everyone to discuss it!

Zach had a work dinner where family was invited and he went solo with the kids! He rocks at the whole solo Daddy thing and I think he enjoys showing off those skills a bit. Tessie’s friend from school (Asher) even sat with them the whole time so Zach had a table full!

And he dresses them so cute too 🙂 

Even with a new baby and the craziness of being in separate states for half the month we still did ALL of our regular Christmas traditions! 

We met Santa 

We did our Christmas baking!

Every year I make my mom’s Christmas cookies for us to decorate together on our Core Crew Christmas

We went to the Dollar Store for our annual stocking shopping!

And we took Spear to church for the first time on Christmas Eve!

Every year we always have a LOT of down time after Christmas morning and this year was no different. I think this year’s down time was even more welcomed than usual because I was just SO eager for CHILL MODE with our new family of 6 rather than the rush rush and distance of the first three weeks of the month. 

Dec 26th is our annual PLAY ALL DAY event! We let the house be a disaster and spend the day opening all the new toys and just letting the kids have total freedom to play all day with whatever they want. It’s always super fun but by the end of the day I’m always super ready for the next day which is our Clean All Day event ; )

First thing Tessie wanted to play with was her new paints from Grandpa and Grammie!

Ugh I don’t do itty bitty pieces and crafting together. So frustrating!

Happy girl with her new “American Girl” stuff!

Another yearly tradition we have is a BIG Feast on the 26th. Zach always cooks and we always use my Christmas china. It’s a fun tradition that we all enjoy! 

YUM!

Together time is the best time!

Ready for the clean all day event! Kye is my collector…he has SO MUCH stuff in his room and it felt so good to clean it OUT! 

As their reward for working hard all day they got to have a sibling sleep over!

Our tree struggled to live this year. Usually I’m allllll about leaving it up until New Years and even then I am sad to see it go but this year I was OVER IT. It was shedding needles like crazy and just looked sad and like it was dying. I wanted it gone on the 27th which is so not typically like me!

Every year Zach’s family has a football game on the 24th called The Cat Creek Classic. It’s been a different sort of year this year and with Christmas Eve falling on a Sunday it just didn’t work out to have the game. So they switched things up and did a golf outing together instead and had a great time! Of course I prefer the football game because I think it’s fun to ALL participate and be able to watch and I know for Zach it’s his only chance to play competitively with the sport he loves but this was a good compromise for this year!

While Daddy golfed…G-Mama asked to stop by to see Spear for a bit so I ran the big three up to the donut shop for a little Mommy Time 🙂 They cracked me up with their attire choices!

We took them home to eat because I didn’t want G-Mama feeling like she was babysitting!

My hair yall. I’m so hardcore about getting it done and it was SO NEEDING it but with Spear’s birth and then being gone it took until after Christmas for me to finally get it cut and colored. The girls came with me because they needed cuts too!

The Before Shots…

After!

Hair Day is the best day!

Kye stepped right back into the big brother role with ease this month. He always makes me proud and I love seeing him with his little brother! 

He was ALL about the legos he got for Christmas. I had hoped they’d last him awhile but instead he was on a mission to get them ALL put together within just a couple of days!

Kye enjoys golf but likes it to be JUST him and Daddy so they took the time to do that together this month and enjoyed it!

Kye is so funny…he literally made a list of “naughty and nice” children for Santa 😉

First thing he wanted to do when Mommy got home from Florida…beat me in checkers 😉

I love his concentration faces!

Winn Dixie gave out Star Wars trading cards and both G-Mama and Aunt Katie gave him some and he loved them! He was all about making up his own Star Wars game to play!

This cracked me up!

PJ Day for the last day of school!

We love game nights together 🙂

Kye and Britt got Tess a recordable storybook for Christmas and it was adorable seeing them record the story together!

First day after Mommy and Spear came home we had snuggle couch time!

Britt was ALL about some dressing up this month. She practically lived in the Star Wars costume we gave her!

This face is classic Britt haha I swear she does enjoy cooking haha

A fond memory I have whenever we have a new baby is sleeping in my bed while the older children watch a movie on the tv. Now with apps Britt could play while I napped 🙂

The day Spear and I were coming home from Florida Zach drove down to help us and Mrs Charlotte kept the older three. They were all running around (which is the norm here) and Britt and Tess collided. I had a BAD feeling when I saw Britt’s teeth…

Sure enough over the next couple of weeks they looked worse and worse

I ended up taking her to the dentist in Jan…

Britt opened her first bank account this month with the money she’s been saving!

This girl keeps us smiling!

I was so proud of her for her reading! She loves to read and soaks up every book she can find!

Fierce. 

Doesn’t she look JUST like Jyn?

Tessie LOVES being a big sister! She was by my side all month wanting to see Spear and love on him! I was so glad that there were no jealousy issues at all!

Here are some cute videos of her this month:

• Sharing her baby knowledge
• Talking about things baby’s like
• Discussing baby’s opinions on fans
• Mixing dough all by herself!
• Reading to Spear

While I was gone Daddy dressed her like Elsa for school, complete with braid 😉

She missed her mama and our snuggles 🙂

Things you find in your bed when you have a toddler haha!

 Britt and Tess LOVE doing makeup and they are so proud at how pretty they look 😉

Helping Daddy at work while Mommy was gone!

In other news a place we have visited many times as a family and one that I grew up visiting shut down this month. Yellow River Game Ranch was really needing to close and was super bad last time we visited but it’s still the end of an era!

I was mostly in yoga pants and comfy clothes this month but did want to share a few of my favorites that I wore!

This top was SO flattering for the hospital photos when Spear officially became ours and met his siblings for the first time. I’m wearing a small and it’s the perfect fit! You can see it for yourself here (and it comes in tons of colors too!)

This is my FAVORITE flannel shirt and I own it in multiple patterns. I was nervous to pack it for ICPC as my suitcase was CRAMMED but yall I pulled it out and it was still wrinkle free and ready to wear! Super comfortable and flattering! 

Random but when we had our first weekend as a family we went to Disney Springs and bought an ornament from the movie Coco because it was our first outing as a complete family and I just liked the idea of having an ornament on our tree to always remember that special time. It plays music and yall we spent the entire MONTH with this song in our heads!!!

I was SO excited about my Christmas gift this year for Dad and Audrey. I’ve been wanting to have a pet portrait done for them by Captured by Colson and I finally was able to see Pearl in person on our visit to get some good shots of her on my camera so Lindsay could use them to create this personal, perfect gift for them! If you’d like to have a pet portrait done for yourself or as a gift you can email Lindsay for more details: lindsay@capturedbycolson.com

We had a wonderful December as a family and are so blessed to enter 2018 WHOLE!

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